Pizza and a Seal

"What I really learned from being a Navy SEAL," he said, "was to be humble, and confidence."

Uh-huh, I thought. Which is why you just showed me a video of you jumping out of airplane. Why you prefaced the comment on your humility with "I didn't just learn to kill people, or to make kill shots with sniper rifles from miles away." You said and did these things because you're obviously humble. You're so incredibly confident that the only reason we're having this conversation is because you wanted to act macho when I started talking to your girlfriend.

I could have said those things out loud. When you pretend to be a Navy SEAL, though, you might just fight a man ten years younger than you for daring to illuminate the truth. And though reality is on my side, an impervious head and fighting reflexes are not. So I kept my mouth shut and instead tried a different tactic: Sycophancy.

"Dope. I'm gonna go eat that pizza."

Ah, the pizza. The reason I went over to his girlfriend and her friend in the first place. That Domino's crust had wafted into my nostrils from across the bar, and I had nothing to lose. I waltzed over there and my wish was granted: a steamy slice. Veggie, but whatever. I paid nothing. I almost thought I might pay with my face- a Navy SEAL boyfriend? This could get ugly.

Not with this guy. I doubted his credentials when he was my height but not noticeably athletic in any way. He came in so hot to talk to me when he noticed me saddle up to the ladies. I noticed that and immediately played friendly, over-the-top in my obsequiousness, and smoothed over the situation. When you're smart, play oblivious. Strangers don't know you're not really dumb. Simpletons gain leeway.

That leeway worked its way into more pizza. I called Jason over to Gary and me, when the women were gone, and said we each wanted another slice. Well, Gary had never had one to begin with and I don't think he truly wanted one, but I wanted two. Channa called Gary up to sing. Leaving me to be asked by Navy Sea Lion, "Who's Gary?"

"Uh, that's Gary."

"Yeah, but who's Gary?"

"He's that guy? Who you just met, Gary?"

"I mean, I've killed people." Ok, sure dude, really relevant to the conversation. "Who is Gary? What's he do, where's he from?"

"Well, he crushes it at karaoke." That's as far as I got. Mr. SEAL got fed up with my inability to put two and two together, I guess, and just let me have the whole box of pizza. Straight up.

Then he showed me the video of him jumping out of a plane, real Smoking Gun evidence of his war record, and we wind up at the beginning of the story. A small, aggressive man. And a smaller, more aggressive but only in the pursuit of pizza, me. What a strange night.

"The separation of the races is not a disease of the colored people, but a disease of the white people." -Albert Einstein

Poems XVI

Many a girl there were, there; But none of them were you.
I can sing "She's A Lady." I can sing "Delilah." And only in that order- 
Because of you.

I had no attached notions of grandeur
To see where we were going,
Whether bold, guarded, wickedly demure,
What was best in you was the unknowing.
Eila,
Though I said it wrong or spelled it poor,
Thy name held so much hope.
Either Fate could've been knocking at the door,
Blissful garden, or knotted rope.

And I didn't know! But
It's what I wanted to see,
But in the end you nixed us,
No love, no heartbreak, no
Sordid passions- for, soon,
The ocean shall be betwixt us.